Qantas just devalued your frequent flyer points, but there's an upside

Sydney Morning Herald

a day ago

Qantas has just raised the bar for its frequent flyers, requiring more points for its Classic Reward seats. Since last Tuesday a Classic Rewards economy seat aboard Qantas between Melbourne and Sydney costs 9200 points, an increase of 1200 points, or 15 per cent. The fees stay the same, at $55.
In business class, a Classic Rewards seat on that flight now requires 19,300 points, an increase of less than 5 per cent, plus a $21 increase in fees. On a Qantas Sydney-London flight, a Classic Rewards seat in economy class now costs 63,500 points, which is also a 15 per cent rise on the 55,200 points prior to August 5. Fees remain the same at $263.
Regardless of which class you're flying, a Classic Reward seat now costs about 15-20 per cent more points than it did before August 5. The exception is premium economy, business and first-class seats aboard flights between 600-2400 miles (965-3862 kilometres), which have only increased by about 5 per cent. The number of points required for an International Classic Upgrade Reward to business class has now increased by 10-20 per cent depending on the flight distance, with shorter flights around the 10 per cent mark.
At the same time, Qantas has added a sugarcoating to the pill, announcing 400,000 more reward seats available across its domestic and international fleet in all cabins. Based on figures supplied in Qantas' 2024 annual report, those 400,000 seats represent about 0.6 per cent of seats on all the airline's flights. Most of those seats will be on dedicated Points Planes, where every seat across all cabins can be secured with points (the first release launched last week and finished on Saturday, but Qantas promises more to come). The deal includes almost 25,000 seats to Paris and Los Angeles on Qantas flights, more than 40,000 seats on Points Planes to Japan and Singapore on Jetstar flights.
Also, almost 135,000 seats will be available on Points Planes for just 5700 points, the lowest reward seat fare in Australia and on Jetstar flights within New Zealand. However, the availability of reward seats on some of its most desirable routes is skewed towards off-peak periods. For example, those 25,000 reward seats to Paris are only available for travel in November 2025, to Los Angeles in February 2026. With excess capacity in those months, the airline is offering reward seats to soak up seats that might otherwise be empty.
Another plus, Qantas flyers now earn more points when they fly with the airline. Effective from July 21, just over two weeks before this latest announcement, Qantas boosted the number of frequent flyer points earned on its domestic flights by 25 per cent. For the airlines' higher-tier frequent flyers holding Silver status and above the deal is even sweeter. A Qantas Platinum member flying business class between Sydney and Melbourne now earns 3500 Qantas points, an increase of 1500 points, or 75 per cent.
On international flights the increase is not nearly as generous. A Qantas Gold member flying Sydney to Los Angeles in the airline's business class now earns 25,594 Qantas points, about a 20 per cent increase. Qantas has also removed the earn cap for tiered members travelling in premium cabins, set to deliver almost 4 billion additional points for members each year.
Winners and losers